Brian Maxson participated in the Nebraska geography symposium

2015 Apr 24

Three Concordia University, Nebraska students won Student Project Showcase awards at the Nebraska GIS/LIS Symposium, which was hosted by the Nebraska GIS/LIS Association and was held April 14-16 in La Vista, Nebraska.

Fourteen Concordia students participated in the symposium. Daniel Moore won first place, Alayna Daberkow earned second place and Justin Damme took third place with their research projects.

Students who participated in the symposium include:

Brian Maxson, a senior from Seward, Neb.

"I was not only proud of the quality of the work and how each student prepared and presented their research but also on how they handled themselves professionally," said Concordia's Professor of Geography Joel Helmer. "My students put forth a great amount of effort and time on their projects, and this was their opportunity to share and discuss their work with geographic information systems professionals from across Nebraska."

Moore's winning project used fuel models, the energy release component, high lightning strike areas and previous fires to identify areas likely to experience potential wildfires in the upper Colorado River areas. Daberkow's second place project showed spatial variation of ACT scores within Nebraska. Damme's third place project compared the distribution of food from the Lincoln Community Food Bank with demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Helmer took students in his Introduction to Geographic Information Systems class and Advanced Geographic Information Systems class to the symposium to present original research poster projects. The symposium also included technical geography workshops, breakout sessions, guest speakers and vendors.

According to gislis.org, "The Association is a non-profit organization comprised of geospatial professionals from the public, private, and academic sectors. ? The purpose of the Association is to assist, educate, coordinate and guide the implementation, development and maintenance of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology in the State of Nebraska."